My novel Unforgettable' 35/44

My novel Unforgettable' 35/44

It was Thursday, four days later from a day Kei located Osawa. Kei met Osawa at a coffee shop on the first floor of a building at Omotesando. It was already past 2:00 at midnight. Kei hesitated to contact Kaori and brooded over words to Rika, who had been absent from the prep school, for a few days. But Kei thought that he should meet Osawa directly and wants to meet him some day. Kei felt out words that Kaori left and found the way from that.

Omotesando was almost deserted at night, different from Shinjuku. But as it was just next to Aoyama, a few foreign girls who looked like models passed on bare foot, swinging golden hair widely and scattering merry voice.
On the counter of the shop a guy who looked like a clerk in a boutique was mortally drunk and lay on his face taking off his glasses on the side of an ashtray. In the back, a waiter with a thick beard turned a record.
It was Bill Evans who refused to be hospitalized and died at live at the Keystone Korner. There was always a kind of impatience in his tune. Perhaps that’s because he was told that he could not live long. Kei did not like him.

Osawa noticed Kei who was looking out of the window idly at the inmost table, and then sat at the same table. Kei had a moment of confusion because his behavior was too natural, but strangely he didn’t feel tension which he had felt from Osawa before. Kei was never affected by Osawa’s action of opening his notebook nor his cool eyes through deep blue lenses.
“I thought you will come here someday. What do you want?”
Osawa laid his hand on the rim of sunglasses. Then he looked down at Kei’s empty cup and said. Ice in a glass of iced coffee melted all and stagnated.
A waiter came and Osawa said, “Regular.” And he cast Kei a glance.
“Coffee, hot”
Osawa laughed a little and said.
“There are more than 50 kinds of coffee beans here. If combinations of blends are added, there would be over 1000. Would you like the same blend as mine?”
Kei kept silent and blushed. Kei trusted Osawa a little because Osawa’s voice sounded calm like relieving the tension Kei felt. It was one side of Osawa which Kei had not felt. Kei was puzzled about that.

Osawa told Kei resting his gaze on the display opened.
“You might hear a little from Kaori, but I will tell you about me. Perhaps we could come to an arrangement with my story and it is also for your own sake.”
Osawa’s clear eyes fell on Kei for a second. Kei was confused at Osawa’s calm look with large pupils and looked away from him. One taxi passed through a red signal that had just changed, and then disappeared on the other side of the crossing.
“I graduated from K University. It is no too much to say that’s one of top 3 in Japan, it depends on college, though. But even in such a university, everyone searched desperately for a company at job hunting. People who entered a university from outside like me and easygoing people who went on with his or her father‘s occupation data scrutinized from early childhood are totally different. People from inside spent day and night in parties as usual because they had certain connections, but other
people spent the desperate time.

Osawa stopped tapping keys and looked out of the window. The eyes looked like recalling his memory. A waiter gave a cup with a saucer to each of two and left.
“I thought at that time. Everything was settled from the beginning. So I found employment at the small production company of my own free will. And now I’m here like this.”
Kei took a sip of coffee. He took a peep into the cup of bitter coffee. Osawa’s forelock reflected on the bottom of the cup swayed and blurred.

“Do you respect my work some? Without thinking of Kaori.”
Osawa fixed his eyes on Kei with a low voice. Kei did not answer it, but his eyes fell on the floor for a second. Osawa seemed to have understood looking at Key’s look.
“Look out of the window.”
Office workers who are seldom seen in Aoyama caught Key’s eyes. They seemed to have tried to call a taxi and stood on the road shoulder staggering and pulling each other’s tie
“They are shit. They deceive themselves to varnish the reality that confronted them, using drinks, appearance and various things. Not others, you know, themselves.”